Where to Start

We've explored how to work on yourself from different perspectives, both technical and mental, and how becoming a better version of yourself is a strategy for creating value. Now comes the practical question: where do you start?

Soft Skills and Hard Skills

It makes sense to divide the skills that help you improve into two categories: soft skills and hard skills. The real challenge is this: how do you approach taking action to improve both types of skills? They require different methods, different mindsets, and different approaches to practice and learning. This changes in every phase, for every topic, and in every type of situation.

The key is flexibility and intuition: the subconscious mental models that let you spot patterns instantly in any situation, processing as many variables as possible. How well this works depends on how well trained your brain is.

The Margin Problem

I need to create margin. But here's the tension: I only have a limited number of hours. Do I use them to create more margin, or do I invest them directly in long-term goals?

One possible answer: focus on the direction that makes the most sense for long-term goals. If you can't create margin in the short term, at least make sure your limited hours are pointed at something meaningful.

Even at an operational level, when ten hours a week might not seem enough, I step back and consider which angle might reveal the solution. The goal is to find the perspective that lets me leverage my efforts to the maximum and make the best use of those limited hours. Sometimes the constraint itself forces us to discover more efficient approaches we would never have found with unlimited time.

Find a Problem Worth Solving

So here's my working approach: invest the time necessary to find a problem worth solving, then start investing your free time in it. If it takes off, great. If not, keep looking for a new problem.

But there's a catch: it's difficult to learn without actually doing. You can't just search forever. At some point, you have to commit to something, even if it's imperfect, just to start building skills and momentum. The search for the perfect problem can become its own form of procrastination.

The balance is between exploration and commitment. Explore enough to find something meaningful, then commit enough to actually learn from the experience.